I think
My tolerance for *******
Has reached its breaking point.

Now I spend my lunch hours
Squirreled away in the smoking room
Lost in tunes
Locked in with my thoughts
Scarfing down
One cigarette after another
And writing these ****** poems.

I don't care to hear
About the inanities of your sad lives.
It's all so bleak.
I feel most alone in a crowd.

I suppose
We all have our ways
Of coping
With the affliction of life.
Many seek refuge
In the mindless chatter of sheep
Others find their release
*****-deep in a wet hole
Or tasting blood and sweat
In the boxing ring
Or the warm, comforting embrace
Of alcohol.
Such blissful escape, all of them.
So what's wrong
With the hallowed cloisters
Of my mind?

**** the lot of you
With your petty dramas
******* hypocrisies
******* noises
Summoning up
The vilest contempt
Slumbering in me.

I am enough.

I forgot what it was like
to stay up past the point of exhaustion,
just to see my phone light up
with your name on it.

It makes me feel special again.
Like we're the only ones awake
in this bustling world.

A secret kept between
me
you
and the atmosphere.

Thinking of us and the asphalt
and how amazing it felt
at 3AM.
Streetlights dancing on our skin,
tracing your ears
and shoulders
and other places I like to nuzzle.

The pavement
reading the traces of your fingertips
on my back
like braille.
Every breath vibrating in the air.

Using each other as a blanket,
wrapping my limbs around you.
Scarfing up and down the road.
Sinking into this.

There's a black hole inside of me
A growing emptiness.
Scarfing down smiles
Absorbing anger
Swallowing sadness.

He was in a cold sweat during a heatwave
She had hot flashes during a cold snap
Fever blisters, heat blisters
Frost bite and heat stroke
Take a cold shower together
Then put on your street clothes
Feast your eyes
Set your sights
Impeccably punctual

The rag tag constituents
*** rush the 'ol drawing board for bragging rights
A jail break in the making
Drinking rat tails at last call
Scarfing down pickled pigs feet
It'***** or miss
It's a leap year

Locking horns with one another
Ornery
Putting forth an esteemed ultimatum
Swing and a miss
Hock your watch
And mind the store
Don't ask don't tell
It's a work in progress

    -Tommy Johnson

summer nights are best spent with you.
greedily scarfing down ice cream,
watching our feet touch the sky from old playground swings.

and the ones in your mom’s car
-the soft music, the hard music
singing to melodies that we’ll never know.

each night, we feel each’s wishes.
i, i want to give you fairs, and cotton candy,
and hold your hand as we walk along the sidewalk.

i want to twirl you around,
because though we’re very summer friends
i want to keep you forever.

our feet scrape the gravel,
toes tap the sidewalk,
noses breathe in the air.

distinctly, i remember something
-us in a concert,
our shoulders brushing as we danced.

i remember laughing with you in the water,
because i hated being short,
so naturally i had to climb you.

i remember every year
we laugh away these nights,
until they become memories.

they, were, definitely,
polaroid worthy.
you’d give a blank look.

and then spring would come again,
and we’d be sitting in your mom’s car,
watching the sunset again.

remember this?

It was a ritual scarfing
spiced-eggs at the subbase,
then heading up
to the mountaintop
to check on
the cumulous-situation.

From the banana house,
one can see for eternity
the tips of Tortola & beyond
& grow fond of such splendor.

The beauty of such moments
can sink deep & stir hearts.
Even the stoutest of pirates
can cry behind the patch,
get snatched by this passion,
reveal his hidden treasure.

My blood-eyes always
seemed mesmerized,
pleasured
by the ***-filled hours
spent down on Back Street
before each maiden voyage.

The trips to Drake's Seat
to confer with the
dreadlocked-donkey man
were always my final stop.
For he had select bumblegum-*****,
homegrown at market prices,
to change perspective
& buccaneers ya know,
certainly need that fix.

Those warm Trade Winds
whipped through
the Inward Passage
while lobsters boiled
on the shore,
and there, raised up
high on the edge,
my stiletto kniving sapphires,
I understood
the true meaning of freedom,
riding supersonic
under golden suns,
in a world
so alone & starving.

His lips will taste different than any lips I've ever consumed
They always do
The most savory treat that I've had the pleasure of eating
Devouring.
Grabbing hold of, grasping firmly, and just scarfing down what is ultimately delicious
What is entirely mine
A snack that few have inhaled
That few have feasted upon
The perimeter that encompasses the area to which he makes me feel such bliss
Causing me to fall limp on my knees
Begging for more
Craving.
Pleading.
That I desire becomes every thing I've ever deserved
All I've ever wanted
Paralyzed by lust, he places his lips in bearings I have only dreamed of
Hallucinations struck into me by love itself
Debilitating.
Numbing.
Leaving me raw and defenseless
An unconcealed breast shimmering in the light cast from the sunset
Peaking through the drapes
The feeling of fragility keeping me taut
Strong.
Beautiful.
As he takes over my body
I lose my sense of self
Only to have it come back to me another day
Greater.
Grander.
More ***** than pure
When he places his hands on me I feel more alive than I have in years
And suddenly, there is no such thing as insecure
I am lovely
Gorgeous.
Better than any of the rest
No one else he skims will feel softer on his fingertips.

You struggle with a corkscrew
I roll my eyes
We’re excited
Clattering glasses
Giggling
Scarfing Lay’s potato chips
Wavy, in case you were wondering
Like the hair that cascades
Over my shoulders
“Here’s to going behind my mother’s back!”
Cheers!
And we laugh some more
Even though my mind
Is protesting
You promise me fun
Lots and lots of fun
Because I need some
I agree
So down goes the bile
Already
It’s churning
Poisoning me faster than expected
My mouth is bitter
My stomach is too empty
My head is starting to swim
Down goes more bile
No use backing out now
I’m halfway gone
“To having fun!”
Cheers!
My hand trembles
Brings up the last of the bile
And down it goes
The room is unsteady
Or is that my balance?
Standing wasn’t such a good idea
So I fall back
Luckily there’s a bed
Was that always there?
“This probably isn’t a good idea…”
You assure me it is
So I guess I asked that
Out loud
I’m still talking
Whatever I said was terribly funny
For we’re laughing
Rolling around
As the room spins
Or is that just me?
You’re asking questions
I can’t answer you
My logic is indisposed at the moment
Stop asking me
Don’t ask me
Stop
Stop
I shouldn’t do this
My brain says it’s wrong
But it’s so soft here
And you say it’s fine, fine
No problem
No worries
No
A feeble protest
But I have no choice
Because reason is useless
And time just sped up
And I’m dizzy
Dizzy
Dizzy
What am I doing?
Slipping
Rolling
Writhing
Twirling
Reaching
Breathing
Spin­ning
Convulsing
Rocking
Losing it entirely
Up and down blur
My pulse is in my ears
Drumming in my head
Stop, stop,* stop!
My brain is shouting
Not right, not right, not right!
But it’s so fuzzy at the edges
So dizzy
And bitter
And bitten
And bleeding
Where’s my headband?
So disoriented
Can’t stop
Must stop
Not right
But so fun
No, not fun
Scary
Scary
Scary
No idea
What’s happening
Breathing
Too hard
Moving
Too fast
Boundaries
I need boundaries
Stop
Can’t
Hands in wavy hair
So tangled
Bruise-like marks
Hide them
Can’t let anyone see
Can’t tell
Must stop
Don’t leave a mark
Wait
Stop
No
What?
I’m
So
Confused
What’s
Happening?
Why
Am
­I
Doing
This?
Why
Can’t
We
Stop?
Must
Come
Down
So
High
Up
Too
Hi­gh
Up
So dizzy
So fuzzy
So woozy
Wobbling
Did I try to stand?
Let me down
Where are we now?
It’s green
So green
Leafy
Breezy
Walking—no, stumbling
Sit here
No, don’t start again
Must come down
Must retain reason
Must un-fuzz brain
Must stop

You promise me nothing will change

I slowly regain balance
The ground stops tilting
I’m shell-shocked
Realization crashes over me
Hits me
Knocks me over
And the guilt pours down
So bitter
Worse than bile
But I deserve it
I should have stopped
No, I never should have started
This changes *everything
Because I can’t face myself
With these memories
Running through my steadied mind

Do you see me?

I’ve been devouring poetry,
by the line,
by the page,
by the book.
No poem has been overlooked.

I’ve been feasting
on free verse,
blank verse,
perverse
cascades
of stanzas and rhymes,
a banquet of words
on which to dine.

I’ve been swallowing ad nauseam,
scarfing down similes,
masticating metaphors,
gormandizing poems aplenty.

Rhyming couplets,
I’ve contained them.
Sonnets and epics,
ingested.
Lyrical odes,
digested.
A thousand lines
to make you swoon.
I’ve tasted them all—
the potent and
the picayune.
Villanelles, check.
Sestinas too.
I even hiccupped
my own haiku:

          Icicles melt on glazed gutters.
          Water drips, prolific, bits of sunlit seeds
          promising lilacs below the eaves.

Do you see me*?

I hate to ask, but I’m afraid
something poetic has happened.

my head is a tureen
brimming with stars
my arms are utensils
in a darkened drawer
my chest, a room of last resort
my feet are stressed, in short

Such prosody is blinding.

Can you tell me why
my eyes are bleak?
Or why I no longer
blink?

I sense the sear of fluent tears
composing on my cheek:
endless drops, black beads,
consumptive stains of ink.

all the preparing
for the big show
the making things perfect
the displaying of stuff just so
there's the
mixing
blending
shaking
seasoning
pouring
cooking
boiling
bakin­g
frosting
whipping
cutting
trimming
spooning
followed by the
devouring
wolfing
scarfing
cramming
munching
chomping
noshing
g­uzzling
slurping
swallowing
and ending with
burping
hiccuping
passing gas
and passing out

happy thanksgiving

The woman, she was the catalyst,
She sat beside me and lured me in,
All concerned nods,
And a single, delectable cookie.

Anyway, it all started
When she asked the fatal question
"Are you all alone dear?"

"All alone in the world,"
I reply, voice tremoring,
"My family, they died
Just over a month ago."

"Oh dear," she
spluttered, clearly
disturbed.

I go on, inventing
blood baths,
poisonings,
diseases,
gruesome ends
that only come to mind
With youth.

After I was neatly done
killing off family members
One by one,
Or three in the case of my
imaginary aunt's
still born triplets,

I sighed.

"It's just so awfully hard.
I don't get very many treats at
my foster parents.
Could I perhaps try a piece
of your cookie?"

"Of course" she replies,
"Here, take it all."
thinking she was helping
another lost soul.

After scarfing it,
(it was delicious, absolutely perfect)
we reached our stop
I thanked her,
the kind, misguided soul,
I stepped off

Into my loving parents embrace.

"Don't you know,
I had the worst trip.
Sat next to this fussy old woman.
I could really use a treat."

So spun the next web.

It's two in the morning,
And nothing glimmers with any sort of light.

The ceiling lamp is buzzing its way into oblivion, and my computer screen won't stop screaming my face off as words continue to recreate themselves all over this paperwork I like to call poetry.

There are clothes on the floor.
A lump that literally states "I'm a bachelor with no tastes";
All my clean clothes are unfolded.

I take time for ******* pageantry, as if video games, film, and other likewise media are my lasting friends.

"Look at me,
I know so much!"
He kindly curtseys to the judge
as he skips away so gayly.

An "Always Sunny" Marathon, at my place maybe?
He says like a Jewish Decapodian, scarfing down some bay leaf.
Just kidding, I'm way too poor for that.

I'm supposed to have my **** together;
I'm supposed to buy a house!
I scream, I rant, I rave, I shout!
Until another stupid ******* ***** me a good one,
Right on the mouth.

I mumble for weeks; I continue on.
Let us all sing, again, the soldier's song:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'

Oh God, what have you done?
Brought politics into a world that had none?
Forever tainted this bill of mine,
For it's possible that it 'twas not designed
for a working world,
for a human social structure,
for a being who's supposed to be good.

We get a mockery each time,
Spit dereliction, each line.

Dear Leslie,

This year was the first in ten years that I didn't tell you happy birthday, that I didn't even speak to you at all. It was an unremarkable day, special to very few (since you share your secrets with only a handful of souls) and I know, before me, it wasn't special to you. But our friendship made it so, our beautifully, tragic, amazing friendship. All the trips to the movies and running down Main St. in the rain. Scarfing sushi in your car while we talked about our day. Buying too many Redvines and eating peanut butter cups until our teeth hurt. . .those memories were treasured on your birthday.

For a decade, we celebrated every December, our dark and twisty version of Gilmore Girls as we mooned over Hollywood stars and wrote out all our fears and worries else our hearts exploded from the weight of having to contain them. (Because, God knows, we couldn't tell our mothers anything without receiving ridicule.)

Things changed after she took her life, and you called me in tears. It was the day after your birthday and we hadn't seen each other in awhile and you were away at college, but that didn't change the fact that I was your first and second and third call after you got the news.

I picked up the phone, and everything changed. She was gone, and had made a mausoleum of your birthday.

I hated her for it. I still do. If I believed in magic, I'd bring her back just to **** her for you. For stealing all the birthday memories we'd shared and built together, a fragile fort against the destruction her very presence brought in your life.

I'm sorry she ruined your birthday for you, and I'm sorry we haven't spoken in months. I hate the distance between us, and it feels like a deeper chasm than any heartbreak I've experienced. Blood may come and go, and so may romance. But our friendship was supposed to withstand all of that, because we had each other's backs.

I still have yours, even though we don't speak anymore

Even though I didn't wish you a happy birthday this year.

Forgive me.

Con amor,
Your Friend

boo hoo fatty, your love life is poor
what did you glut all those ding dongs for
you cant find a man who will stay anymore
look at that thin girl with the super fine ***
while you gorge on the sugar water glass after glass
slothing through life as a blubbering mass
yes, its your ******* fault
your over eating wont hault
so digest my insults with a bucket of salt
put down the diet pill
roll up on to a treadmill
and stop scarfing more than your fill
its just not attractive
when your jaws are over active
from a "10" your shamu suit is detractive
lets be realistic
cow ******* is sadistic
a hundred pounds or so should do the trick
its the gross parts
like the arm pit farts
and the stretch marks laid out like fault line charts
back in the day
before it was cool to be gay
to the fat chicks we said no way

These sounds of silence
Rumble and roar
I’m in a constant state of questioning
Asking what love is,
Filling in the gaps between all my questions
With the things we saved for March
Relishing in the idea of spring
And what it means to bloom
Peeling away at citrus,
Reaching for the plums and nectarines
In the icebox, scarfing down cooled melon
Picking at peonies and daffodils
Thinking about tea but hating its taste
I was never a morning person
But the sun these days is so new

But it’s when the winter creeps back
And I awake to a morning frost
Bits of past, pieces of December
Pine trees and heating cars
I remember the worth of remembering
And the reality of how time moves
And how all these questions
Sprinkle down with snow, rain,
sun rays, or leaves
never leaving, never eased
only knowing that I don’t know
and that seasons don’t return; they just pass

☒ Give to me the possession of my hormones back for full absorption*
☒ as I'm keen on resuming the bony splinter means of bone resorption
☒ while admixed by neo-commixed protocols of bio-ecleptic sorption
☒ Let's stomp sun-burnt faces 'cause J. Edgar Hoover was the riddled
☒ manufacturer of Malcolm X from a ***** mulatto known by Little
☒ who scrounged while Jersey burned its cheap, girly skirts for a tittle
☒ Marilyn Monroe was like a door **** because everyone got a turn:
☒ spooks, gay wops, greasers & tunnel bums who were keen to learn,
☒ even day laborers, migrant fruit pickers & coal miners eager to earn
☒ as Marilyn's 'scribed tranquilizer regimen was of no mortal concern
☒ 'cause it was Norma Jean's lithium intake that no one could discern
☒ anymore than the Unabomber's gripes seen by Alexander Cockburn
☒ or the clinically-constipated pretentiousness of nut-job Bruce Dern
☒ who holds far less star appeal than a gator-****-covered swamp fern
☒ or a petit jury of unscrubbed, chitlin'-lovin' nitwits about to adjourn
☒ into the night life of ******, their ponces and mamas horridly stern
☒ who were evicted by the Empire Hotel Group of the Hotel Lucerne
☒ whereat a politico can parlay sick-leave *** with a volunteer intern,
☒ in a meeting room spread eagle on **** carpet near a V.F.W. lectern
☒ for a thrilling roll of tattooed *** wiggle, tanned hip swish & churn
☒ Thiomersal makes serums kick ***, so we'll long for what we yearn
☒ to eat doves, hawks, wrens, rooks, robins & the greater crested tern
☒ Merck adds the blood of rabbits to their notorious M.M.R. vaccine
☒ to proliferate superior mutant strains that filtrate foggy brains clean
☒ Patients are murdered in hospitals for their kidneys, lungs & organs
☒ Do not cry over spilt milk nor over the disarmed Aussies poor guns
☒ 'cause switched ships Titanic & Olympic were banker J.P. Morgan's
☒ The P.M. didn't expose insurance fraud for fear of losing war funds
☒ The power to tax involves the power to destroy is heavy and taxing
☒ as it wanes menstrually when it is not in the seventh house waxing,
☒ or naked in a river with water moccasins, gators & pirañas relaxing
☒ as redacted facsimiles of pentagonal papers have militarians faxing
☒ about whether Check 'n Go offers the best 3rd-party-check-cashing
☒ while our children are dulled by prescription tranquilizer dopamine
☒ they are concurrently spazzed by that genic stimulant amphetamine
☒ which was pharmaceutically pedalled by allopathists as benzedrine
☒ that's able to hyper-stimulate a brain faster than a ten-pound praline
☒ while sickening patients via rashes of neuro-transmitting histamine
☒ A superior knowledge must be properly applied to equate to power
☒ from a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall or Pentecostal ivory tower
☒ below which poor people must be transfixed into a cowardly cower
☒ whilst stupefied by the oily patter of tele-prompted twit Matt Lauer
☒ who graduated from imbecile of the minute to retardate of the hour
☒ He got this way by substituting saw dust for desiccated wheat flour
☒ while denigrating Ike's warning against the militarists we empower
☒ I suspected that the stinking ****** I grew up with wasn't a brother
☒ till the program for adoptees: Look Dumb-***, I Ain't Your Mother!
☒ School-gun-free-zone laws force armed criminals to finally disarm
☒ in gun-free zones to protect our children from armed-criminal harm
☒ as no one need fear for in each school there's a regulation fire alarm
☒ plus in every home-room there's a martial-arts-trained school marm
☒ and if her tae kwon do fails she'll lure from him his gun with charm
☒ as she's a **** gal even though she was raised on a Wisconsin farm
☒ O Lord God have mercy to steer a misplaced/misdirected gratitude
☒ to a septicemic pit that'll sanitarily coax hyper-stimulated negritude
☒ what'll ablate pained receptors spun into a dextro-rotational attitude
☒ coursing towards 1 dizzy patter replenishing whomsoever'll delude
☒ the framed, gullible men & clothes-racked naturalists who sun ****
☒ 100% cocksure to stymie church with a girlified/glorified interlude
☒ before the bank of God files this in suit, the way it wants to be sued
☒ or epoxied, affixed, pasted, joined, stuck, adhered, taped and glued
☒ onto pages of doggerel verse that's shockingly & mockingly shrewd
☒ while an edibly-ripe tomato's rendered unpalatable as it was stewed
☒ for a *******-tight ***** forcefully torqued cracks tightly *******
☒ falling from the stitched mouths of dowagers bitten off half chewed
☒ From Hibernia to Albion, Scotsmen hang martyrs from an oak rood
☒ as pleated t'ings Scottish are sorely transfixed & rough-hewn crude  
☒ where Wales' women decry a Holyheaded Welshman miner's mood
☒ that's digested like lamb lobscouse stew which's St. Helens #1 food
☒ pushing Brixton's Jamaican monkeys into a quasi-Rastafarian feud
☒ Out of the blue you rained on me saturating this prosthetic left knee
☒ I should've shot you in the neck before you pushed me out of a tree
☒ I can't cover my bald head unless somebody sells me a wig for free
☒ From a boat it's good to hurl & ***** 'cause it's fish food in the sea
☒ as rancid crap dumped overboard makes for delicious salt-water tea
☒ the type preferred by the vampiress Liz: Romanian quean of misery
☒ & ma to the wing-eared-imbecilic Chucky mate to mammy Cammy
☒ in full glory, in casual shift that is provocatively low-cut and flimsy
☒ Albanian maniac = Albaniac from under & off a Penn Central track
☒ Romanian  maniac = Romaniac no matter the ooze of angled crack
☒ that will trump disease by scarfing red-peppered cole slaw cabbage
☒ so as to avert pelvic-girdle bruising plus sudden high-thigh damage
☒ Conventions banning torture are seen by State eugenicists as quaint
☒ because botulism makes not a crone seem no younger than she ain't
☒ In circles dark chronic emphysema is a darkly chronicled complaint
☒ soon as you thunk no violation too vile could make Liz queen faint
☒ on the decks of slaughter-ships finished in super polymerized paint
☒ **** no stick to monarchical petticoats while the shell rots of a saint
☒ where no sodium fluoridated water can pineal gland ******* & taint
☒ as no lardy laird shall see redress from Marxian Scotland's restraint
☒ Dominican man-eaters wolf almond brother & nephew sandwiches
☒ over the shrill hue & cry of black, barren, hog-shaped Indio *******
☒ whose godless zombie voodoo chants prohibit hiking furry britches
☒ even though hairy pants are the #1 thing that negresses know itches
☒ all students at Lee Harvey Oswald's C.I.A. college of patsy snitches
*☒ where marksmen and sharp-shooters exhibit shaking-palsy twitches